Alone
by Forest Archer
Summary: Set during series 3, episode six. When it matters most, Athos seems to have arrived too late.


_(A/N: Spoilers for series 3, episode 6 lie within. I found this to be an incredibly powerful scene in a very emotional episode, and this demanded to be written. This series is epic so far.)_

* * *

The explosion ripped Athos' world apart.

He was so damn close when it happened, but all the same he was too far away. Too late. Five minutes faster and he could have stopped this. The pace of even that furious ride had been too slow. They'd _had_ to stop to rest the horses, but what if those minutes were the ones that could have changed all of this? No, Athos knew the cause. He had been with Sylvie this morning, not with his brothers, and now they were dead.

He should have been with them.

By the time they charged into the courtyard, Grimaud's men were gone, vanished into the dust, but Athos didn't care. He leapt from the horse, screaming for his brothers, started tearing at the wreckage of the building. Treville shouted behind him and others joined him, clambering over timber and stone, but he couldn't look round, couldn't stop, couldn't let himself see Treville's face.

To Athos' frenzied mind, looking at Treville would be like looking at the Reaper; he could not bear to see his old Captain's grief, to be told that it might already be too late.

Athos was not alone. They could not have left him alone.

The blocks of stone were huge, the timbers thick and heavy. Each could kill a man, snap bones and crush lungs, pierce skin and stop the heart. Then there was the explosion itself and Athos had seen too many times the damage gunpowder did to a body. Musketeers did not die easily but they were not immortal.

His brothers were all in there, and Athos couldn't breathe.

Every movement pulled on his wounds, still fresh and hastily treated; they cried out for rest and for expert attention, for Aramis' help. But he might never have Aramis beside him again, nor Porthos and d'Artagnan, and if he didn't find them it didn't matter if he died too - it would never matter again. He might live and fight for France, but France was nothing without his brothers.

All the while, Treville could only struggle with the ruin himself, pleading with God to find the musketeers there - for if he lost three, he lost all four, and he did not deserve to outlive them all.

* * *

Athos could not find them, and the bottom fell out of the world.

The others still searched, but he could not bear it. The cadets still believed they would find Aramis, Porthos and d'Artagnan alive because they were legends, and legends didn't die. It was true in its way, but legends were only stories. Stories live as long as they are told, but men are mortal. This story had found an ending, and it did not care that it was born from Athos' nightmares.

He was alone. The brothers he had fought beside, laughed with, trusted above all others, were dead, and he alone had survived. Was this how Aramis had felt in Savoy? Athos had never truly understood his friend's darkness but now he was drowning in it, hating the fact of his own survival. Why had he survived Grimaud's attack that morning? If he could have lived to save his brothers, his life would have meant something. Now all he could think was that it would have been easier to go first.

They had died in pain, in a terrible way, but they had died together.

And then there was a shout, muffled but so wonderfully, gloriously alive that for a moment he thought he had dreamt it; he turned, wild-eyed and barely daring to hope.

"WE REFUSE TO DIE!"

Athos flung himself forward, ripping wood out of the way, never more grateful for the cadets and Treville at his side as they tore their way through. And there was Porthos - hurting and covered in dust but alive, and Athos could have held him forever.

"You took your time," Porthos grunted, and Athos could have cried, but there was no time. "D'Artagnan."

He dove back in, pulling d'Artagnan free - thank God they were close together - and his young friend was alive too, and Athos must have done something wonderfully good in his life to deserve this, though he couldn't think what it was.

The world had almost shored up underneath him, he was almost standing on solid ground, but Porthos had only mentioned d'Artagnan. There ought to be a third man to pull free and Porthos would never forget him, never leave a brother behind, and Athos' insides turned to ice.

Did Porthos know that Aramis was already dead?

He bellowed his brother's name into the mangled ruin, terrible images in his mind's eye. He could see Aramis, his body twisted and broken, bloodied beyond saving, eyes staring open and sightless, waiting for a rescue that was never going to come. Athos wanted to tear the world apart because none of them were allowed to die, not a single one, and _he was supposed to protect them all_.

"He's not here! He's not here, he's with the King."

D'Artagnan's words were like water to a man dying in the desert, and finally - finally - Athos could breathe again. Aramis wasn't here. Aramis had never been in the explosion and the world was the right side up at last. It was the same oddly guilty relief he'd felt so many times in the war, when he'd looked around for his brothers and remembered that Aramis had never even been there. He could not bring himself to share Porthos' anger at Aramis leaving them to go to the monastery, for one less brother on the battlefield was one brother safe.

"From the palace," Clairmont said, passing a letter over to the Minister, who read it grimly.

"Gaston has escaped the Bastille," Treville announced with all the weariness of the world, "and the King and Aramis have not returned from the mausoleum."

That sickly fear, so recently departed, returned to Athos with full power. Would this never end? Would they never be rid of the forces that wanted them dead, even when they were in Paris not at war - where they should have been safe?

He pulled himself up, forcing back the exhaustion and pain that had claimed every limb. Their day was not yet done.

But this time, as he staggered to his feet, Porthos and d'Artagnan rose beside him. He had got two brothers back from the brink of death. He had thought he was alone, and he was not.

They had refused to die, and Aramis would do no less. Athos would not lose them. Not today.

"We ride for Saint-Denis."

And he would not stop until the world came back together.


End file.
